MY WITCH 24: Trust Can Be Lost or Found
by NotQuiteNormOld
Summary: but not always by the right people. Cedric is making his attempt to get a step ahead on Prince Phobos with Elyon, while Caleb is.. Irritated by, and irritating Will. A short special WxC CxE Slight ExP possible.. Yeah, just challenge me to get more  x  in!
1. Chapter 1

Apologies to TTigerz.. The generator won :L :L

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><p><em>"Getting to know you! Getting to know all, <strong>about <strong>you!"_

_"Hay Lin. Shut up."_

_"Getting to like you! Getting to hope you- OW!"_

_"Well, I sai- OW! DON'T HIT ME BACK!" _Caleb grimaced as Hay Lin and Irma's voices travelled down to the near-empty room, though perhaps _'near-empty' _was no longer an appropriate description, considering the tension of a scowl worth a well-off million glared it's attention to him, and Caleb only mirrored the affections.

"Don't you undermine me."

Caleb growled and Will held face, though he could see her lip curving into a smile - it was only because she thought she was winning. "Well, if you would care to strengthen your argument with something other than brash name-calling, you might have a right to say that. For now, you are undermining yourself."

And then Will blew a raspberry at him. This was to be a long day, and it already had been when Caleb had decidedly tried, to get Will to fight alongside Cornelia. Apparently she saw her safety as a back seat, as Will seemed less than abstinent to comply with his wishes. She didn't want to live apparently, and he wished she'd see that the other girls simply weren't strong enough if she inevitably got herself into the path of danger. If he weren't so aggrivated, the childish way she'd turned her back on him and folded her arms would be funny, but Caleb only let out another sigh of heated air and pressed his fingers and thumb to his tired eyes, waiting for Will to speak. It might even be less awkward if Hay Lin hadn't apparently over-ruled the brunette water guardian. God only knew how. "_GETTING TO LIIIKE YOU! GETTING TO HOPE YOU LIIIIKE MEEEE!"_

"Will Vandom, are you going t- Gamóto korítsia me enallagés tis diáthesis tous, kai ta arómata tous kai ilíthioi ilíthio perifánia tous!" Caleb winced as the door slammed behind Will who'd started walking out before he'd even finished his sentence. Then Hay Lin and Irma's bickering and singing ceased, and Caleb heard the sharp, wordless drone of Will's voice before a second door slammed and he knew she was gone. And then there were long, painful seconds of silence.

_"GETTING TO KNOW YOU! PUTTING IT MY WAY, BUT NIIIIICELY! YOU ARE PRECISELY! MY CUP! OF TEEEAAA!"_

**...**

"Phobos?" Elyon stood, bared in a glossy and silken, peach robe that she'd chosen for it's flattering nature, and she'd appreciated that the thing had hung in a way to make her look taller she thought, though after an hour or so, waiting to be called for breakfast she'd found herself having to pull the slippery sleeves back over her shoulders with every movement she made; including the movement needed to pull her sleeves up. So now the sliken robe clung forward in creases which led to an oversized, clumsy knot at her front, which only accentuated her childishness, to no appeal. She watched, with fog-grey eyes as Cedric turned the corner, and hunched over the knot; turning away to hid her silliness. "Oh, Cedric.. I thought you were my, uh, brother.."

The word tasted sour on the back of her throat, and Elyon dropped the knot she'd been fumbling ad she pushed away the concious fact that she'd been frantic about wearing something she looked nice in for reasons that even the olde time of Meridian's developement would surely frown upon. Elyon found herself with her chin to her chest with shame, when Cedric careened her around to facing him, with only the fingertips of one hand's gentle push. She heard a breath of humor and she knew he was looking at the knot; a fact confirmed when his long, tenderly slim hands entwined fingers into the fabric to loosen in seconds what she'd been unable to undo. The fabric slid away, with it's creases instantly disappearing, and Elyon made a hasty grab as the item made a dash to escape from her left shoulder; pulling it up despit her knowing there was no point in keeping it on. She looked up to kind blue eyes, that bubbled with a knowing humor almost suited to those looking down at a child. Almost, but not quite. "I can get you something to fix it properly."

"You can?" Her eyes fixed to him then - suddenly amazed by the simple idea that he would help her rather than laugh or tell her to just wear something else.

"If that's what you want to wear." Elyon felt a warm pulse to her cheeks, of neither embarassment, nor anxiety. No, it was a happy blush, and for once Elyon didn't mind because she knew she didn't have to cover her cheeks. Cedric had already told her before that she was pretty when she blushed. He was always so.. Good. There was nothing she couldn't tell him, and she turned and clutched her pink sketchbook in crossed arms before she let him slide a hand onto her shoulder, quite possibly to keep the darned robe over her slim pink dress.

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><p><strong>Gamóto korítsia me enallagés tis diáthesis tous, kai ta arómata tous kai ilíthioi ilíthio perifánia tous! -<strong> Fucking girls with their mood swings, and their perfumes and their stupid stupid pride!

...Okay, yes, I went for a fight again. I went for CxE again. I might be getting quite predictable, but, especially Will/Caleb fights.. I love this stuff. :L

Also, am very sorry to say, this is it for today as I had to write a philosophy essay before this for homework, and my times up. My msn people - I'll be on in about 30mins to an hour (UK time of 6.30 - 7pm).


	2. Chapter 2

Prince Phobos dragged slim fingers through the spilt morcels of sand that lay over the arm of his cathedra throne, creating broken patterns as he watched scenes unfolding listlessly throughout his Metaworld. It was the curiousity of a man hoping not to think that let his Lord Cedric and Elyon Brown entertain him for a short moment. There was no point in flickering wonder at how exactly the pitiful snake intended to fix his sister's promiscuality. Perhaps he intended to hoard it from her; bleeding it out in heavy breaths if he intended to binge on her explicit youth, and Prince Phobos couldn't care less if he did, though he waved the images of the pair in a corridor away all the same. Whichever room Cedric intended to take her to, it was not his own and Phobos concealed a lack of interest with a smile. As if anyone was watching - he wouldn't want his father to think him weak.

And Elyon deserved her amour, Prince Phobos having watched her pick through the items of rare beauty that he'd have almost acknowledge her choosing as some level of taste, though she only lay them on her bed until he'd been less than stunned when she had chosen to wear the closest to beguile that had been laid rest in her provided wardrobe, in a room fit more for her dresses than she was. It hadn't even been amusing that she had childishly tied the knot of the ensemble across her chest, and he'd almost gone, just to see how she'd feel at his skepticism. But he didn't want to see her and he didn't now wish to confront Cedric - he had, after-all presented the creatured Lord with a raise of spirits by giving him full form of his sister before the man's imposing face could dare think of asking him. Besides, if Cedric was not to entertain her, possibly breaking her natures (as it would be far easier for Phobos to keep one broken than as she was on arrival), when otherwise it would be quite a waste for her to have barely dressed herself. Next time the pinkish underneath garment probably wouldn't even be there.. Today Phobos had never intended to dine breakfasts with his blood; watching her push foodstuffs in sizely mouthfuls, while outside the world was dying. No. He'd intended for her to wait. Though if Cedric needed her, he would hardly ascertain the man.

Prince Phobos breathed his smirk, closing his eyes and resting his head back as the images tried to find something, though his mind itself was not focused. He pressed his hands on the cold, heavy throne and ignored the previous tremble of his fingers - the outcome of an addict without his addiction. Without power, no man could be God. Without power, though, what was he but a man alone, with only his failure of a Kingdom shriveling around him.

_Sit pater, superbi._

**...**

Will Vandom stormed through the streets, glad not to have any reason to spend another minute with a boy who could not trust in her to stay alive. She, even she, could admit that her record was no good, but Will despised that Caleb refused to continue to help her. It was an odd notion, and one she didn't like to put in words, but it wouldn't matter anyway if he didn't wish to secure her himself anymore, and he'd made it quite clear in his 'bedroom'. He was pushing her off; telling her as though she were an extra body that she had to go stand behind Cornelia while they did their job. Cornelia.

Will pushed open her building door and dug her hand into her pocket for her key as she took the stairs two at a time; too seethed to wait for the elevator to beep. Cornelia was strong. The strongest, and by standards it could quite easily be her age, though the power itself of rocks and trees seemed even to sound the strongest, while Will could barely stay off the ground - a power that not only did everyone share, but they also tended to be much better at it; even with Taranee's fear of heights. But the power wasn't the problem, and Will didn't wish to sound selfish or even to sound judgemental, but as far as Will was concerned Cornelia was yet to capture her trust - something that none of the girls, nor Caleb truely would have in all areas, perhaps ever, but at least with Caleb she could be sure that he'd catch her. Cornelia was beautiful, and in honesty Will was too snowed to even bother being jealous, and Cornelia was funny and popular and Will valued her as much as her mother. But Will didn't much trust her mother either, so how could she be expected to stand with this girl and _not _be terrified.. It wasn't Caleb's right to tell her where to go, but Will's problem was the location itself rather than the demand.. But how could she tell him that..?

Will sighed, clicking the lock and pushing open the door, only to turn directly to the coat-rack and pull off a blue string-bag and stride back, slamming the door behind her. It had been too long.

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><p><strong>Sit pater, superbi. - <strong>(Meridian, not 'Escanor') Father, be proud.


	3. Chapter 3

A touch of evil, but mostly something light-hearted (well of course, Hay Lin _and_ Irma..). Enjoy!

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><p>"Don't be a dolt." Irma grinned after the words had tumbled past her lips as Caleb pushed the door open behind Hay Lin, who ignored him, looking up from her vast attempt of <em>'fixing'<em> the ancient VCR so that she could force Irma to watch her _'awe-inspiring' _third grade backing in the fourth grade's _Sound of Music. _Hay Lin was still convinced that it was due to immense talent, but years back Irma had confirmed by means of Cornelia that the year had just been short one tree on the day. Hay Lin hadn't actually been meant to sing. "I think your slink has kinked."

"Wh-"

"Well I don't think you're playing with a full deck." Irma raised a brow as Hay Lin accepted the challenge, and didn't dare let herself look at how puzzled Caleb must have looked.

"You're a few clowns short of a circus."

"Your cheese has slid off your cracker."

"Your wheel is spinning.. But the hamster's dead." That got her. Hay Lin looked blankly at Irma and Irma could only wait for the call of victory - Hay Lin's admittance to defeat. This game never got old.

"You're dumber than a box of hair."

"Wha..." Irma let the word trail on for a few seconds as Caleb stared at her blankly and the corners of Hay Lin's mouth rose in sheer delight. Irma couldn't believe it.

"I WON!" Hay Lin never won. Never. Not at this.. The tiny frame of a girl began a celebratory dance that Irma was too stunned to insult, and Irma took long seconds before her oval-shaped mouth snapped shut and she folded her arms; her nose turning to the air.

"That wasn't even a real insult."

"I won!"

"I mean, I didn't technically say anything."

"I won!"

"I mean... What kind of an insult is _HAIR_!"

Irma pouted and Hay Lin's eyes shimmered with innocence. "The winning kind."

"I'm not even going to bother.." Caleb raised his hands and began backing out of the room in attempt to rid himself of the madness, but even Irma couldn't help laughing at Caleb's almost scared features when Hay Lin whipped around and poked a finger into his chest.

"YOU!"

**...**

Lord Cedric walked the halls with assured ease - he'd never been this way before, but was quite sure that he'd know what he was looking for when he saw it. Even murmurers weren't here. "Where.."

"Ah.. Now that would be telling, mon Princess. It's a surprise." His smirk raised to a smile when she didn't coment on the _'my', _and Cedric then let his fingers lead as his hand slipped down to the crook of her back. A young girl on the borders of woman-hood. He was surprised that Prince Phobos could call her ugly, when the thinner, hesitant frame of the little redhead seemed to amuse him so.. "But you'll see soon enough."

**...**

"Me.." Caleb raised an eyebrow, looking down to the girl filled with so much raw energy that he actually felt an initial unease when she'd turned around and frowned at him. Hay Lin rarely frowned, though when she did, Caleb had quickly realized, it was generally over the fact that he dared pour himself _her_ cerial, then not even have the manners to eat the sickly chocolate flakes. It was safe to say he'd never done it since he tried them.. Possibly something to do with his distaste for them though.. "What did I do?"

"What _did_ you do?" Then Caleb scowled as Irma asked him the question and suddenly understanding came to him. Girls fought for girls. He shouldn't have let Will go upstairs alone. "She said for me to tell you, that you are a pig and.. Something long and boring to remember, though witty to hear."

"Wow.." Caleb grimaced, wanting to slam his palm against his forhead, except that he'd learned that Irma was nearly as bad as Will, and he wouldn't get away with cheek when she was already being fency. "I'm so glad I got that message."

And then Hay Lin poked his chest again, full pouting lips to go with knitted eyebrows that showed her supreme attempt of being assertive. "You go and apologise right now, before.."

"Before?" Caleb challenged, urging himself not to smile as she screwed up her face trying to think.

After a few minutes Irma looked up. "..Befooore..?"

"Before.." Hay Lin frowned, still trying to look hard and failing miserably. "Before Irma does something really bad to you."

"WHAT?" Irma had jumped up to standing, and Caleb grinned at how presumptuous the threat had sounded, and how offended the water guardian seemed to be by that fact, though his smile faded when she calmed and grinned evilly. "Yeah.. ..I'll set Cornelia on you."


	4. Chapter 4

Steam rose over the talcum powder-scented room, as few people laughed and dashed from the showers to the warmth of the changing rooms which contained their waiting towels. Will let her head lull against the tiled wall as hot water burned her flesh clean and she started to recall the relaxations that she found herself experiencing submerged in the cool water that was only a minutes distance from her now. Something about the smell and the waves, and the freedom of movement just flowed for Will, in, to strip away her anxieties.

The water stopped flowing from the shower and Will smiled, already enjoying the long left activity. This was hers, and no one could ruin it for her. Will walked over cool tiles, laced with footprints of swimmers before her, and her smile only grew when she saw a familiar face, standing next to a member of his band and looking disgusted by the boy and his costume-wearing girlfriend's tongue tennis, that was until he spotted Will and grinned, giving her a wave. Will also found herself smiling broadly, and gave him a little wave, but when he blushed the smile fell and she looked away, cursing Caleb for being such an abnoxious bastard to ruin her moment.

With that, Will took heavy strides to the edge of the pool and dove forcedully in, mentally kicking herself when she knew she'd performed it wrong; it was nice to know that Matt Olsen would think she was a failure in _all _degrees.. Mentally.. Socially.. Physically.. Why did she have to come swimming?

**...**

Elyon Escanor's eyes lit as she walked past the heavy, plain cherry-elm wood door that Cedric had pushed open with a glint of something in his eyes; something that prepared her, but nothing could prepare her for this.

A pale room, of lightest blues and shimmering velvet that shone between silver and gold. So vast and beautiful were the quaintly engraved darkwoods and lucious looking linens and thick, yet captivating rugs of painfully light, yet detailed patterning, which lay peacefully over yet another hard marble floor of waving silk blues and almost pinks, that gave off a delecate excellence, so enticingly elegant that going in seemed a sin. Even the slight crumple of the sheets seemed pristene, and only emasculated any right to disrupt the essentiality of the room, making it harder to walk forward, harder to breathe, but she was a step too late and only looked around to the Lord as Cedric most carefully pressed the door closed - a door that lay plain and bare on the outside, though the inner seemed entrenched in carved flowers and cherubs, which looked out to her with graceful smiles, as her Lord then strode purposefully, yet not with any aggression which might damage the air of the room, which due to her awe, seemed to be thicker than anywhere else she had been. She dragged her eyes along to follow Cedric, who halted at a vanity desk, motioning to the blue tapestry seat of the chair, though Elyon's eyes drew attention first to the desk itself. An immense clutter of jewels and make-ups that somehow only made the room seem more grand, despite, when she grew closer, the thin layer of dust that covered the items; causing Elyon to look back up to question the Lord, by means of wide, unsure eyes. "Magic preserves.. Your mother's room, Elyon. Until now there has been no heir to indulge in her impecable taste."

Elyon's eyes, now wide with awe and shock, stared from the charming smile to the masses which were apparently hers. Eleanor Brown had never worn a jewel in her life, and never could afford Elyon any. "R-really?"

**...**

"She doesn't want to fight with Cornelia..? Oh, how thee I count the ways and whys!" Caleb rolled his eyes, frowning at Irma's sarcasm, but it was, as it often could be, Hay Lin who blurted the words; generally something that seemed far too explicit to be coming from the young child's mouth - of course, ignoring his own youth and hypocracy.

"Well, maybe it's because Cornelia's always like a super-bitch to Will.." And then it caught on and Hay Lin slapped her hand over her tiny, little mouth and Caleb recalled the first time this had happened; little Hay Lin sucking in until he asked why, then blatantly stating that she was sucking the words back in... Of course. Hay Lin's little dark eyes grew wide and she looked directly up at Caleb who raised an eyebrow, waiting for her inherited insanity of the thankfully absent Yan Lin (God only knew where she went half the time), but Hay Lin blinked and pointed at Irma. "She said it."

Caleb grinned then, at the silly lie and the scowling brunette who'd raised a fist as if she'd ever hit Hay Lin properly. But then as the humor wore off he realized what she'd said and the chit-chat of the girls faded into the background, because how could he be so stupid? ..Will didn't like Cornelia. It was always displayed as the other way round, but other than to him, Will generally kept her critisisms to herself, and rarely said a rude word about another. And Will _had _to be nice to Cornelia. Because they needed Cornelia to stay, and because Cornelia was touchy enough without a reason to be. He was in the wrong after all. "Shit.."

Irma burst out laughing then, and Caleb looked dazedly from one girl to the other as Hay Lin pouted, "It's not.. That word..! I _like_ it." But Caleb had no idea what they were talking about.

"Where did Will go?"

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><p>Again, single chapter today - homework always rears it's ugly head when I have a good story idea going.. Grr..<p>

And I promise a longer segment of ExC will be in the next chapter.. I just wanted to get Elyon's veiw of the room, then Cedric's of the 'fluff'. :L :L


	5. Chapter 5

Okay, I promised CxE... Here is some CxE.

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><p>Cedric grinned with a raw elation as Elyon's wide eyes shone, with unknowing innocence, paired with sheer pleasure of the magnitudinous task of taking in each exhibit of every shimmering jewel and golden crest. She was too good to touch though; the only slight damp on Cedric's glee being that her amity was keeping her arms strictly by her sides - while he'd honestly hoped she'd touch her dirty little fingers on everything - not even moving them from their rigid position when she obeyed his shepherding finger, which beconed her to sit on the expensive, silken tapestry cushioned stool that rested infront of the desk and rather becoming mirror. And then the reason they came here, well Elyon's reason of course (a reason he was grateful to have paraded itself to him), slid once again down Elyon's arm in the form of a velvety sleeve and Elyon looked at it as though it was foreign; her eyes dazed and glassy. "Oh.. I.."<p>

"Your mother was very fond of fine things, Elyon." Cedric let his long fingers slide over incredible jewels and golds which almost shone pink. Over silvery blues that seemed to match the very room, and of brassy bracelets which had been delicately made so thin they might snap if picked up too forcefully. Cedric let his long fingers slide over these things, creating patterns in the thin, yet encasing dust of the table, smiling again, but not revealing the malice which amused him so. It was humorous, after all, that he would let Elyon believe the late Queen was vapid as she, failing to mention how these items were treasured for the value of her husband, Prince Vasilis, having had been the one to present her with these items, and that appreciation was never once for any items astetic value. But Cedric wasn't in search for Vasilis' gifts of generousity. No. Lord Cedric was looking for a gift, far more appropriate for his princess. Lord Cedric was looking for a gift of love.

A single brooch that his eyes finally rested on, on the opening of a thick, solid box of iron. Funny that, like a prison's bars. Locking away a heart. His fingers; clasped around the heavy lid of the box, with the care as though it were glass, his fingers pressed the lid onto the table, again distrubing dust; Cedric revelling in Elyon's eyes following his every quaking movement (were he to be quaking, though of Cedric only came the feeling of calm mixed with gluttony - from his indulgence of these acts) as he silently let go of the steady lid and let fingers caress and sweep the box's edge until he saw in the corner of his eye Elyon biting her lip.

Anticipation was always the best part of a show, and Elyon's arms moved, one hand let go of the clasp on her sketchbook as she pushed it to the side of the desk, and Cedric ventured into the box, to pull out the bronzing brooch. It held the perfect orange shine of an item never previously touched, and Lord Cedric felt the bliss of smooth, cold copper on his skin as he swept the flat of his thumb over it's untainted surface. It was a tretcherous thing if Prince Phobos saw it; better yet if he would know it's true origin. And if then she were to break or scratch or contaminate this item, Cedric would love to see Phobos boil. After all that he'd done to Cedric with the murmurers, and his work, and the torment of never knowing if he was to live or even if life was the better option. But Phobos couldn't touch him now. Not with his precious power in his useless sister. Phobos truely did not see how useful such a girl could be. And he had given her to Cedric with his bare hands and free mind. Cedric's thin, paled fingers worked quickly, ignoring the silght startled noise of Elyon when he came up behind her; his arms crossing over her shoulders and the cool metal and his hands pressing closer to his chest than he know he ought to. In silence he clipped the brooch and her parted robe together, so that it clung once again, but now far more gracing and enhancingly to her small, barely developing frame. Her face was at the mirror, but he knew her eyes were on his hands, which he accordingly brought upon her shoulders. "You look fit for a Queen now."

**...**

It looked grim, in the foggy skies of Heatherfield's early afternoon, but Hay Lin gleamed as she tugged along her best friend, and a boy she would now claim to anyone as her brother; Caleb was frowning slightly as he strode forward a little too quickly and Hay Lin knew he was thinking. In fact, when he was in thought like this, it was almost certainly of Will, and his face would even more certainly look as grim as the skies. He didn't much seem to like Will. "You do realize that she doesn't want to see you.. Or talk to you..?"

"Then she can close her eyes and shut her mouth and it'll finally be possible for me to get my word in, týchi mou sta teleftaío." Hay Lin tilted her head, wondering what to say to that, but Irma raised an eyebrow and she knew that Irma was having one of those few rare moments when she actually felt the need to enquire some information. She didn't even look like she was going to be sarcastic.

"Why do you do that?"

Caleb, who's eyes had been forced face-forward the entire journey so far, swiveled down to Irma, and his forceful pace slowed. "Do what?"

And then Irma stopped and Hay Lin had to take two steps back, because the entire debut to the pool seemed to stop just to hear this. "You talk like that sometimes, but you really hardly ever say anything in that.. ..not most of the time."

Everything went quiet then, and Caleb was once again in thought, though now more contented and Hay Lin knew it from when he'd sit with her and tell her the answers to her questioning the ethics in Meridian. It was her grandma who had asked her to talk to him, but in the end it had been fairly interesting that when he gave her his own opinion, the continuos pausing was clearly where she ought insert a swear, and overall he was fairly agitated by the idea of a God, and only _ever _tried to use their 'Pal-something' in vain. Caleb didn't believe in praying - not the real kind when you would actually be seeking some guidance or assistance. But now he stood thinking in the same way, and Hay Lin wondered if he'd swear now that Irma was here. He certainly didn't bother to save Will's ears, and now never spoke an insult directly to her unless he knew she was listening. He'd told Hay Lin that with a grin, and Hay Lin was not in anyway denying how she lapped up his words. He was truely a rolemodel in the face of conversation. "I don't know."

"Oh." It was Irma who said it, but as they moved onward Hay Lin saw that the word had verbalized her disappointment. Usually his logic was inspiringly eccentric, and that was coming from Hay Lin who would not go to school unless none of her clothes matched. "Well what did you say then, because it sounded pretty sarcastic, and you know you shouldn't even bother trying to outwit m..."

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><p><strong>týchi mou sta teleftaío - <strong>'my luck at last' (**_finally _**he'll be able to speak)

Again, this is it, but I do this with full intent to post two chapters tomorrow _AND _on Sunday.


	6. Chapter 6

The first two chapters I plan, but I do have work so it'll be later for the next one.

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><p>Will's mood calmed, usually, in the water, but today the perfume of chlorine that scented the almost oily water which slithered past her skin and Will only became more frustrated with herself for every too-rigid movement which was displaying to any onlookers just how clumsily violent she could be when she was angry. And boy was she angry, because as she swallowed another blundering mouthful of the sour water, Will's thoughts had not been able to drift away to nothing, or something nice; not even to the Matt Olsen who flushed every time she reached the end of a length and happened to glance his way.<p>

No, her thoughts were stuck; refusing to veer too far and every time she saw Matt blush, she saw Caleb scowl. Every swallow of water was Will refusing to swallow her pride, and Caleb's refusing to swallow his. Every time her eyes burned because she'd forgotten her goggles, she was Cornelia; the poor girl who could only know her best friend was walking into a tragic fate. Every stroke of water which surrounded her was this ill-seated fate of that meeting with Phobos and the entire drowning prospect that she could easily die tomorrow, and what would her mother think then? Nothing. Her mother wouldn't ever think, because her mother would be happy enough, and no one would miss Will for her astral drop, because no one could tell the difference. Inevitably Will reached the pool's edge again, this time looking up not to find him scowling, but for her heart to sink because Caleb was drowning too. Except that he didn't have a choice and he probably just wanted everything back to normal too, but Caleb couldn't just run away.

This time Will pushed forward with angry strokes and kicks that directed at herself, ignoring Matt Olsen and his raising eyebrow at her uttering herself a string of curses. Why did Caleb have to be so.. So. There wasn't even a word to describe what he was, because she supposed, the only way to describe him would be through a long list of both curses and compliments alike, and of course it only made her hate him more.

**...**

Prince Phobos had tried to find again, his formless sister and the waif of a snake planning to do away with her childhood. But they were gone, apparently, and it was possibly better, because Prince Phobos quite simply didn't want to look. Not at them. But something ad squirmed; possibly the thought of two so ugly together, but something had made him search by word of murmur. But they weren't there and Cedric had not been heading for the door, and Prince Phobos only knew one place that murmurs could not be heard, as carefully as one might look, and one place he had never been, for his mother had forebode him from the corridor of hers and her fathers. To be truthful once he had ventured, but never inside the door to the room, and that was less as he'd been a child, and his mother had been there at the time to chide him.

How dare Cedric take such a pest into that corridor, and if he were to break her in his mother's room, his mother would never have forgiven him. Prince Phobos frowned a tired frown - bags were almost forming on near-translucent skin, and now the beauty of the pale was beginning to look more like the sickly of the weak. Elyon had done this to him.

Or perhaps Cedric, and Phobos knew he would play and tease at the snake-man's capabilities; to fight, to kill, to stand and bow to the murmurers he so hated, but Prince Phobos was unsure whether to be pleasantly surprised (later a feeling he would mull upon, but not yet) or simply snarl and let the murmurers feed off of Cedric's skin for being so damn spineless to use his sister to spite him. To use his sister's body - a body Phobos had freely given - to revenge the Prince himself by dirtying his mother's cloths. Who knew what else he had inspired in her - the hugs and touches, and possibly the idea to clutch as she did on that damned sketchbook.

That damned sketchbook, which plagued Prince Phobos' mind; how dare she not give him the privilege to look and how dare she constantly peek herself in his presence, and how dare she. How dare she keep it clutched to her bosom as though it were a child in a way that Prince Phobos could never hold a love for anything. Everything was ashes and dust in Phobos eyes. Nothing he touched would last. His mother. His father. This whole damned castle and the colors of mourning that Elyon herself had banished. Because he couldn't afford to mourn in front of her. And for ever smile he felt dirtier than his clean skin had felt in a long time. Emotion, even that of disgust, had no place in Phobos' throne. Pleasure was the only thing worth having. And pleasure was power: love was simply a state of mind that fools fantasized as such a feeling of pleasure.

With one last fleeting look into the seeing sands, Prince Phobos stepped through the swirl of his own dirtied reflection; spoiling a near perfect image, though he saw a trout where should be a dove. He would step, today, into his mother's room for the first time in seventeen and at least a good half of a year.


	7. Chapter 7

Okay, forget 'later'. :L

* * *

><p>When Caleb reached the pool, Irma was delighted to laugh at his scrunching face, then surprised look and she wondered what he thought of the smell of chlorine. "Is that poison?"<p>

He knew the smell then. Hay Lin, amusingly grinned and pulled the poor guy in as shock crossed his features that they were walking, quite literally into the poisoned building, and Irma walked lazily behind. "Pure, diluted poison my friend. Didn't you know that on Earth all swimmers are suicidal?"

The joke dropped though, as soon as Caleb looked at her with a badly disguised panic, and Irma wondered if it would be inappropriate to pull out her camera-phone in order to take a picture. Will would want this look as her screen-saver, but before Irma got the chance Hay Lin smiled and shook her head, "Ignore her."

"Why would you swim in poison.. Is Will insane..?" Irma rolled her eyes as Caleb frowned in confused thought; allowing Hay Lin to easily careen him through the door which Irma held.

"Probably, but I don't think that's relevant."

**...**

Elyon Escanor tilted her head slightly, with curious eyes that lingered on the brooch in her reflection, and the curves it made the beautiful ensemble divulge and publish of her barely shaped figure. She was no less than she should be, and would even be considered as slightly curvy, but that didn't begin to change the fact that Elyon was barely close to fifteen years of age. She wouldn't be sixteen until next October and Elyon hated that she was one of the youngest in her class; in technicality she'd have been in the year below if she hadn't skipped kindergarten on her parent's wishes of the school. It didn't matter because they weren't her parents at all, but it had been the one thing she'd truly actually been mature enough to thank them for. She'd have been less likely to have warmed to Hay Lin or Irma without Cornelia to introduce them, and thus she'd never have had her best friend. Though that didn't matter either, as Elyon's eyes wandered across the desk to pink. "Are we finished here, then?"

Elyon jumped as she remembered Cedric's hands on her shoulders, which moved in an almost massaging manner when she tensed her arms in a slight shrug; dropping it when she realized that it wasn't exactly the prestigious thing to do, and clearing her voice and straightening her back to speak. "I suppose we are.. I was just.."

"I have something to show you then, " Cedric's glimmering smile relaxed Elyon and her curiosity grew. If this was just a means to fix a problem, what would be his true idea of surprise. "I do think that you'll very much like it."

**...**

"Entyposiásei." Caleb breathed the word with no intent or awareness that he was actually saying it, but truth be spoken he wasn't entirely sure if it was the poisonously thick sensation flowing in his lungs that was deluding him with this fazey feeling of dreamlike clouded thought as he watched the brightest blue water he'd ever seen, rippling in a box of pristine blue tiles that encased the shimmering 'pool'. And Will was there; he'd found her quickly as he scanned over the few bobbing heads, and he knew that she was obviously better and faster than the others - some who barely moved and only splashed playfully, but it was the entire visage and experience of the pool, and although he already found an enjoyment of swimming (not in particular, but it was not an undesirable sport), Caleb could see why Will liked swimming on Earth.

"Caleb..?" And she was good too; her flaming red contrasted the pool nicely, now pushed back in thick, wet locks and Caleb knew he would never get the smell out of his clothes, but it was starting to elude him as almost enticing. The entire experience was, though it seemed more terrific to watch than the prospect of actually swimming scene. That was until she stopped at the edge and turned to look and then turned a little pinker at the cheeks, looking at.. It was that boy again.

* * *

><p><strong>Entyposiásei -<strong> Wow.


	8. Chapter 8

I know that's a big word for 'wow'.. There are smaller ones, but I thought it was more exaggerating. :)

* * *

><p>Caleb ignored Hay Lin's happy chatter, as this time Will swam further away toward the idiot of a boy who grinned at something another boy said, and Caleb scrutinized the guy who clearly hadn't been acquainted with a razor. But as soon as his eyes drifted to Will they didn't move again - Caleb gulped as he realized that the entire of her back was displayed and he'd almost thought her nude until his careful eyes found the blue straps - a deep navy which he hadn't really noticed in the water when he'd been looking at the focus on her face. She was even paler in the body, he noticed, and the blue shone onto her as well as it might on pure white, and even where the meek fabric covered, Caleb could still follow the line of her spine, which followed the slight curve of her back, which held even in he position in the water. It was traveling back up though, that his grassy eyes found the blades of her shoulders, and he let the rest there, completely engrossed in the way the muscles worked as her arms stretched out for every stroke, in a rolling motion as rhythmic as the dim music being played in the background.. "Caleb?"<p>

"I wasn't.." Caleb's mouth hung open as he tried to push down the words he never meant to say, as Irma raised her eyebrows; waiting for him to finish. "I wasn't thinking when I told her to fight with Cornelia.. That's what I should say right?"

He'd been quick, but when Irma continued to stare at him, Caleb stared down at the ground in shame, well aware that Hay Lin was too preoccupied with waving and calling out the name _'Matt' _to pay any attention to his fascination, and as much as Caleb knew it would be the same for any girl; it was only because he'd never seen one so.. Exposed, that Caleb had been lured to watch, and Caleb was now too concerned to recall his shame that he should never look at a woman, because he was sure he knew that name, and Caleb's focused frown deepened when he looked up to see the dark haired boy wave politely to little Hay Lin.

**...**

Prince Phobos had walked the halls, until the murmurers would not see his very next step. There were footprints, invisible, but they burned in his mind as his eyes futilely searched the magically spotless hard floors that turned a corner, he knew concealed his mother's quarters. He half expected the pair to walk around the corner towards him, within the long seconds that Phobos stood at the line only detectable to him - the line coursed over the wood in a long, straight line which he recalled like his mother was only just drawing it with a pointing finger now; Prince Phobos almost stepped back when he remembered his mother's foreboding features. But there was a worse injustice, currently, than for Prince Phobos to break the only rules he'd ever followed, and thin, porcelain lips drew shaking breath as Phobos took the step which broke over that line. He could swear it was colder on the other side.

"Dimitte me matre." Prince Phobos breathed the words, in the true Meridian his mother had spoken so soothingly:_ Forgive me mother._ It had become a sin the second that his mother had tutted and Prince Phobos felt the air getting thicker around him. _It was the dust, _Phobos told himself, and the Prince wiped his hair away from his face. His mother had told him to grow it, while his father had told him he could have what he liked. Clearly his father didn't know everything, or else where was his mother now? ..Prince Phobos waved a hand sluggishly and tried to ignore the sting of his life force draining out of him, to light the deathly still halls. He was right. The light shone dimly and the dust was visible; trapped by a barrier he'd set on the floor, but a thin layer now revealed two pairs of tracks: he couldn't use magic as freely with Elyon here. The dust had so recently been falling..

Prince Phobos left a third set of tracks, as he stood, careful not to step in theirs as he followed, mutely.

**...**

Irma Lair, stood, awkwardly straight and begging him not to; though it was a futile wish, however, and Caleb's eyes were soon on Will again. She knew that he'd liked her more than he let on - Caleb himself had been honest enough in telling her that he thought Will was a _'Something more than the others'_, while they both lay, leaning on the wall with their legs hanging from the width of his high bed as they threw darts across the room at a picture of Cornelia: a sport concocted simply to piss off the girl they knew to be steps away from entering the room, because whenever he wasn't with the others, Irma had found that Caleb could be just an average guy. One that she liked too, and he was quick to have climbed into the ranks with her other best friends. "Will she be long..?"

Caleb's eyes followed every stoke, and Irma frowned pitifully in his direction. It would be no good, if Caleb were to like Will more than Will liked herself, and Irma already knew that he did. He was far too honest with her, and things he'd said might not even reach the ears of his 'little' Hay Lin, but boys would rarely tell their sisters, whether blood-bound or not. "You shouldn't wait for her you know.. People like Will.. They don't see when you want.."

"When I want what?" Caleb frowned, as he often did with a confusion when her sarcasm died away, but she couldn't tell him. He would've understood and he should've already known what she'd meant, but Caleb was too smart not to get it unless he didn't know. So he wasn't waiting anyway.. Irma shook her head, figuring that Caleb would be abrupt with Will.. As soon as he realized she was female.

* * *

><p>Okay... Above, the thoughts are a little clouded, but that's how I see logic coming from Irma... 'Not quite right'. :L :L<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

They hadn't walked back over the same halls, and in fact they had gone in the opposite direction, and Lord Cedric had led the to what appeared to be a measly brooms cupboard. It was there that Elyon's curiosity grew and diminished, all at the same time and she stepped forward quickly to rattle at the door, but finding it refusing to open, Elyon let go and stepped back to look up at Cedric. "It's locked."

"Eínai fysiká, to kleidioú sto domátio tis mitéras sas." The words slipped from his lips in a sinister whisper which tickled at the pit f Elyon's stomach and blushed up to her rounded cheeks. His hand twisted toward his sleeve, as one might perform a magic trick at a show, and Elyon gleamed when he pushed a minuscule key to his fingertips. "Elyon; princess. For every lock there is a key."

With that Elyon responded to a playful smile of mirth, by tentatively removing the key from is hands, and sliding it into the door's lock. It made a low, scraping noise as she slowly turned the key, which felt heavier than it looked and it's silver shine didn't match the bronze doorknob, and for a split second she thought it wouldn't be the right one until it clicked. Looking one final time to Cedric - a precaution of making sure that the next step was permitted each time - when he nodded knowingly, Elyon practically pounced her hands onto the door to push it open and gape at the long, impossibly cramped, yet delicate winding staircase. With a movement of hands from Cedric, the room lit with a sparkling white glow that revealed only more to gasp at. White stone and marble linked the heavy, maroon wood of every step, and into the curved wood walls, there it was again - cherubs and flowers and vines which swirled marvelously and made little Elyon feel like she were.. Royalty.

After a sum of minutes, long after the impressed Lord Cedric had composed himself; unseen by Elyon's eyes, Elyon finally dragged her eyes away to wordlessly question the Lord, who to Elyon had never lost the calmly smile. "There is another entrance, but I felt you ought be able to feel like a real queen when you descended. Only the ladies of the house, with their advisory seconds have ever descended these stairs."

"My.. Second..?" Elyon blushed when Cedric held up his arm from the elbow; offering her to rest hers atop of take his hand. She was quick to lace her fingers around his own soft palm, making sure to keep her lady-like composure as she'd seen in so many films, but Elyon couldn't help but ruin the image with a grin.

Elyon Escanor; Princess of Meridian was elated when Lord Cedric too bared his teeth charmingly. "Like a queen."

**...**

It hadn't taken Will a few moments to notice the crowd of three, but she swam on, all too aware of the penetrating green eyes on her. Had Caleb never seen anyone swim before? Or was he just glaring at her because he wasn't done fighting and Will knew she was probably being silly not to trust Cornelia.. But she didn't want him to know that she knew that he was right. So she kept on swimming; ignoring the burn of her skin that she was sure was no longer from the water. She couldn't keep going like this, so when Will reached the pools edge once again, she would probably just have to get out and see what he wanted.

**...**

Elyon had greedily drank in the scene, which Cedric himself could not deny as magnificent. It wasn't a lie, that a downstairs male would be the one to take each Queen, down the majestic stairs, though Cedric himself had never worked with her whilst the Queen had lived, and his father had never been given the direct privilege Cedric had practically presented to himself. Elyon was in no depth to a queen, and not nearly well enough dressed, but it was the proper way, to take a lady majesty. "Where does it go?"

Cedric smiled at the echo of her childish voice around the room, and felt her shift her fingers with a modern Earth impatience. It was a room that Prince Phobos hated, and coming down these stairs was more necessary than Cedric let on, considering the man did not know the whereabouts of the key, for the other large doors into the ballroom. Celebration was banished, silently, by the young Prince, who Cedric knew to never once have been to an event - not even the celebrations of his own years - whilst Lord Cedric had once been brave enough to peek out for hours as laughter and music emitted from the larger entrance.

There was nothing to romance a woman quite like the beauty of the ball, and Cedric knew one as enthusiastic as Elyon and as imaginatively minded would not mind the haunting cobwebs. No doubt, Lord Cedric thought with a wry smile, Elyon would only resolve to clean it with her bare hands - the girl was yet to treat any as a royal should a servant and she would constantly get a raise of Phobos' brow as she acknowledged and thanked the dinner staff at the long, prestigious table; something Cedric was only himself allowed to stand attention at the wall, long feet away from (Elyon had accustomed not to speak to him, but still her grey eyes wandered over). Elyon would not have been a suitable queen, so Prince Phobos' actions were only a version of what Cedric, otherwise, would feel inclined to take.

* * *

><p><strong>Eínai fysiká, to kleidioú sto domátio tis mitéras sas.<strong> - Of course it is, the key was in your mother's room.


	10. Chapter 10

Will had finished her last lap slowly, though perhaps it was only Caleb, who taken every breath in as her body had bobbed in and out. No. She was definitely slower, and Caleb had almost been impatient until she reached the edge of the pool. Then he wished she would turn around and go again, because instead she had angled her arms and, hands clasping the edges of the pale blue tiles, she had pulled herself out and Caleb had felt Irma's scolding eyes on him as he swallowed. She was tiny. With thin legs which were more proportionate than he'd thought to Will's thin, arching back, her entire frame giving and twisting to sit; legs dangling beguilingly into the shimmering water surface. He'd never looked, on the rare occasions that Cornelia or Irma and certainly not when wore shorts or skirts, but he supposed it was the slithering trickles of water that fascinated him to trace down the shiny lines of water that embraced her skin, which was no longer as white; the lack of blue engulfing her revealed the slightest peach. It wasn't something that Caleb had come to know easily, and until now he had only agreed with what Aldarn had stated to fit the word.. But, if not _'beauty'_, then surely _'eloquence'_ was the word to describe the girl now. Though maybe both were needed, as one would describe the stunning nature, and one the way that she was deliberately performing the task of sliding her legs from the water and standing. But what did a boy like him kn- "Caleb!"

The sharp his was executed with a punching elbow in Caleb's gut, and Irma glowered at him while Hay Lin leaned dangerously over the barrier between them and Will; between swimmers and spectators, as she waved and grinned to Will, who wiggled her fingers feebly. It was only then, that Caleb snapped out of his stupor, and realized how little the redhead.. The girl.. The _child _was wearing. And his eyes snapped to the roof, while Irma continued to hiss a string of reasons he should be ashamed, but Caleb was busy being damn shocked and embarrassed to actually indulge in shame. Will was the one prancing around half nude after all.. More than half. "Why isn't she-"

"What is he doing?" It was one of the least explicit insult she ever used: ignoring his presence, but Caleb didn't dare respond for fear he might look down. Instead he simply shoved his hands into his pockets with intention to pinch himself if he dare even think about it. If Will didn't do something about it, Irma would certainly drown him. In all honesty though, Caleb didn't want to retort to the insult, because above every panic and shock and awe and fear that raged through Caleb's clearly poisoned veins; Caleb didn't feel insulted. So he was quite sure a retort was unnecessary and Will wasn't particularly wrong, and it was proven next, to be a great enough feat just to verbalize her name without looking down at her.

"Hello. Will."

**...**

Prince Phobos hadn't needed to lay his incriminating fingerprints on the door or it's handle. The foolish convicts had left it ajar, and no doubt those were Elyon's marks; the fingerprints and lines that glazed over near every item. The room was thick and the dusk which had been eradicated to dance through the room attacked his very lungs as a punishment for the sin of his being here. And that was not the only thing Prince Phobos hated, and a lover of power only has one fear that makes the lover wish he were death-bound rather than face his own **_weakness_**.

Phobos shook. His facial features quivered at the very sight of the still crumpled bedsheets and the nightdress flung over the door of the wardrobe' door. Fear course through him and Prince Phobos momentarily forgot that his mother could not possibly be coming to find him in here; a place where none, until today, other than his mother had been. Servants were allowed into the Queen's chambers at every level, but this room had been made especially for only her. A sign of affection, apparently, from his father to create her this place that was now clearly a refuge, but at the time the eight year old boy had thought it banishment. Somber, fell Phobos' mouth and eyes, as they caressed over objects he would see around the woman's wrist occasionally, but never dare he touch.

And finally his eyes found the odd piece out. He knew this sketchbook as well as he knew the other items of this room; gazed at but never seen, and Prince Phobos knew that he _had _found, finally, something he felt he could rest his hands on.

* * *

><p>This is about to get good tomorrow, and I simply didn't have time for more today as my brother has awoken :L :L<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

A lighter chapter... I'm thinking, on theme basis, that I should soon be moving up to M-rate (simply to avoid and small chance of troubles).. Opinions?

Please R&R fo me :)

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><p>Princess Elyon Escanor descended the thin, winding staircase, with no fathoming of what to expect at the bottom step. Rather, there was a fairly thin chamber to match, and another door; this too crested in the beauty held in the now white surrounding walls. Royal maroon continued to encase the floor beneath her feet, and Elyon hesitantly raised a hand when she reached the door - her right, considering her left was currently comfortably warm in the handsome Cedric's own. As though her thoughts had summoned him, Cedric cleared his throat, and Elyon's hand shot back, with her eyes instantly regarding his own slate-blues, which seemed hard, though Elyon shook it off as their colour as Cedric smiled at her fondly. "Allow me.. My Lady."<p>

Elyon felt her cheeks glow pink, and her lips flickered up in a shy smile at the title given. She wasn't a girl, or a princess as still sounded coyly childish to her. Elyon was a Lady, and she hadn't a mere moment to mull over the tickling in her chest before the door was pushed forward and Elyon's cloudy grey eyes tried to take in the scene all at once. "Oh my God!"

"I was sure that you'd like it."

**...**

"Oh. My. God. Caleb do you have to be such a dolt!" Will Vandom's cheeks flushed with heat as her focus split between the boy _not _looking at her, and the group of them around Matt who were. "Won't you just look at me!"

"I don't think he's gonna look.." Will scowled, and glared at Irma, before raising an eyebrow skeptically at the awkwardly rigid back and worried features crossing Irma Lair's face. Hay Lin stepped beside Caleb and tilted her head, and Irma shook off the look, smacking Hay Lin lightly over the head. "He's not looking at anything!"

"Could I.." Will's tense frown returned, and she crossed her arms over her chest - more because of the cold on her skin than of the actual motive of anger; though she was becoming steadily less inclined to apologise to the selfish brat in front of her. Cornelia wasn't even here, so whatever he did now didn't matter. Matt however.. Matt was here. And if _he _wasn't looking, his friends would surely provide a nice, accurate account of her every movement. "..Um.. Could I speak to you.. Later maybe..?"

"No." Will knew it was childish, but in her mind she had every right to play out this childishness now, rather than meeting him again to embarrass her further. They would end this now. "I don't see why we can't talk now.. And clearly you can't, unless there's some reason scrawled up there on the roof..?"

"Um.."

And at that point something snapped in Will, and her pout became a growling glower, because maybe it was the reason he was here; surely to continue debating whether she should stand by Cornelia or perhaps just transform them and leave. Because maybe it was the icy breeze that was starting to make her shiver. Because maybe there was no fun in wiping the stupid smirks off the pretty-boy's face if she couldn't even see them. But whatever it was, Will couldn't take it anymore. "Just look at me while I'm insulting you, will you!"

It got a snort from Irma, and Hay Lin leaned over the barrier to wrap and arm over Will's freezing, water glazed shoulders, but Caleb only shifted his arms awkwardly, and she was sure his face changed into some form of grimace. "But.."

"But WHAT Caleb!" The hiss was louder than she'd intended it to be, and Will's burning cheeks flared up again as someone murmured. Will lowered her voice before she spoke again, though would later wish Caleb had had the same initiative. "But _what_?"

"You..'re slightly.. _unattired, _and I, uh, don't appreciate the.. Exposed nature of your.." He never did finish, and Irma appeared to be turning very pale, yet her cheeks more beetroot than Will's own. How did she even understand what it meant? Even the shameless eavesdroppers looked confused in the long, withering silence, but before she could ask, Caleb's voice cracked. "You're practically naked!"

A few sniggered and whistled, as Will's mouth fell open, but her eyes didn't miss the flicker of light as Mathew Olsen's eyes shot to meet hers, then wandered the height of her body before he, too reverted to staring at the roof. Irma had literally slapped herself in the forehead, while Hay Lin did nothing to hide her sputtering laughter, and the loud, "He's totally right!"


	12. Chapter 12

Prince Phobos sat; his back against the cold stone walls and he felt like a child once again, with his fingers scraping gently over a scratchy pink fabric that encased his sister's secrets. _Words can only hold so much. _Phobos' head leaned back and the young boy closed his eyes so that he could almost feel the breath of his mother beside him. _But a picture.. Those hold the entire world through the creator's eyes alone._

He flicked open the cover, before he raised his eyelids, and Phobos' body drowned as his eyes scorched over what he'd swear to be his mother's penscript. But it was of Elyon's friend, so Phobos knew he hadn't made a mistake, but the water, perhaps dust, filling his lungs boiled with a rage as he stared down at an uncanny smiling face - Phobos was sure - to that of the Guardian of Earth. "Gaea of Meridian."

Phobos hated the stolen tongue, but his own _'terra parens' _seemed far too amiable to discribe the Mother Earth, and Phobos skin burned as he stretched and pressed his hand on the door - frowning at the purple flowers which swam up the vines preventing entrance from the door. For her, this Gaea, the lock to the keyless door and the means for Phobos to prevent his sister from entering again.

Phobos fingers clasped around the book with seemingly thinner, and weaker hands than he'd arrived with, pushing himself off the floor in silence - his walk seemed slow and broken, though his anger seethed over his skin with more pain than that of his life force blubbing away and climbing up his mother's door. I'm sorry Mother.

**...**

"Just great Caleb!" Irma watched in agonizing silence as Will's cheeks glared red and the girl's nimble frame shook in both anger and cold. "I can't believe you said that! And Matt is _right _there!"

There were more whistles, from the few people closest who heard, and as Will clutched her arms around her chest and tore over the tiles to the changing rooms, Irma watched Caleb's eyes dart down to her descending back. It was like watching Bambi realize his mother had been shot, and even Hay Lin looked a little stunned, though she quickly found her smile again - too caught up in the humor of it all to notice Caleb's eyes contract and slice at Matt for less than a moment, before the fifteen year old boy sneered. "Bastard shouldn't have been looking."

"That's kinda.. A lot, coming from you." Irma said the words with more care than she'd ever usually place, but she really had to know if Caleb had any idea of what he was doing.. Experiencing.. "Isn't it..?"

Caleb frowned, but she was sure she saw a flicker of something in his confusion, and after a moment the guilt no longer hid itself away in Caleb's features. Caleb took a step away from Hay Lin, and looked at Irma with more apologies she thought were neccessary. And they weren't for her, but she felt her throat go dry all the same. "I shouldn't have... I've never seen.."

"I'm not going to tell you off for it Caleb, sheesh, just don't ogle her.." The confusion was back and Irma knew that there was no getting to him. He had no idea why he was staring. And God save him he'd need to figure out before Cornelia's apetite grew - it was a miracle he'd been saved for this long. "Just.. Just tell her when you.. Forget it."

**...**

"I had hoped that you would like it.." Lord Cedric grinned wryly as Elyon span energetically and spread her arms out in amidst the dusty floor, and in the centre of cobwebbed walls that didn't seem to take heed from Elyon, who was far more entranced by the suggestion of the room, than this bleak place in itself.

"I love it! I love dancing! Cedric, don't you love dancing!" If only not to ruin her joys, Cedric nodded a small polite nod, but Elyon, who had called out the words like a drunkard midst flow, span again; causing a wild rush of thick dust particles to join the merriment of the dance. "I mean like _proper _dancing! Like this dancing! With the dresses and the horses and carriages outside and- Oh Cedric, isn't it wonderful!"

"Marvelous, Elyon. I am glad to see you enthused." ..A loud shriek echoed then; climbing over and through the walls and Cedric only took Prince Phobos' outbursting wail as a sign that his work had been noted. And Cedric had already removed her Majesty's silver key from the door, so if Phobos was coming, he wasn't coming through his mothers entrance; not that the sentimental brat ever would, and he wouldn't come at all if he knew what was good for him.. It had caused Elyon to stop, mid-spin, to look at him with wide, frightened eyes, and Lord Cedric only forced a charming smirk - he could not, for once, remove quite all of the malice from his eyes. "Perhaps, my Elyon, the prince has been taken unwell."

She smiled a little then, and nodded in a way that made Cedric wonder; if he were to tell her his lordship was a form of cacti, the girl would most probably believe him - at least going by the mistruths he slipped from his tongue to her in great wads and numbers. She didn't go back to her dance though, and as the echoes died away (if with the prince, then Cedric thought, good riddance), after long minutes of standing, Elyon bit her lip, before sweeping in the most lady-like fashion he'd seen her, to sit on the dust bitten floor. And what was Cedric but to oblige her.


	13. Chapter 13

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!" Wilhelmina Vandom, in all her raging glory - for that was her name, and that was how she ought at that moment be described - screeched from a feet's distance, as she advanced and thrust her fist at Caleb, who had knowingly caught the blow in his hand. Within seconds he stoo holding both her little fists in his hands; her waifs of arms crossing in front of her, but the reverberating pain telling him not only that she was right to initially punch from her right, but also that he was glad he'd guessed she would do it, and having just won for the first time in Will's far too consesual combat, Caleb couldn't help but grin at her cockily.

"Where do you plan to go from here then?" Caleb had meant it to sound every bit as sneering as it had, but he wished he'd stuck to grinning as he let go and doubled over where she'd knee'd him - eyeing her as she shrugged, attempting to pout over the gloat.

"Up."

Caleb heard Hay Lin, and saw Irma wincing in the background, taking note for him to _thank _them for helping him by standing and watching without a word toward himself or Will. His sympathies had disolved, however, and once the pain started to wear, Caleb looked up at Will with more pain in his face than he felt. "And I expect you will be helping me home then."

It was a long shot, and he curled up again when Will stepped toward him, but she crouched down and glared at him with more presence than he was sure she'd intended upon, and his stomach churned loudly when she uttered the words with venom. "Not on your life."

She moved to get up and walk away then, but Caleb caught her wrist and yanked her face to his. "I _can't_ walk properly."

"I'm glad to hear that and I hope you lose a chance for kids too," Caleb rolled his eyes, smiling at the fact that she pulled him up despite her own words. He _could _walk, and he was quite sure that she mustn't have quite aimed right, because it wasn't half as painful as the first time, but when he stood and she waited for his arm which slipped over her shoulder - he pushed all of his weight onto her anyways. "Fucking hell Caleb, are you serious?"

"You did it." Caleb felt his mouth flicker, and he'd thought the game was over when she gared to his face, not an inch from hers, with slitted eyes. He let the smile slide across his face as he relaxed into the position; ready for the long walk home he did not intend to endure alone.

"You're not even in pain, you evil, freakishly heavy bastard! You-"

"You think I'm lying?" Caleb took a single step forward, and allowed himself to emit an unenchantingly fake cry of pain as Will's lips pressed together tensely. They stared a long, trivial walk home and Caleb smiled at her coyly, taking in a deep breath and enjoying the talcy scent of the pool that seemed attached to her as she blew at a soaking lock of red. "I would never lie to a girl like you."

"Oh, fuck off."

**...**

Prince Phobos shook with rage, where he sat in a room they would never find him. He couldn't go to them like this; bubbling with rage and now without enough breath to scream. He'd hidden in the murmur room of course, and wished with all of his might that he could shake his sister now and ask her what she'd intended other to salt his very existance. His mother's room and his mother's chairs and his mother's make ups and his mother's skill to draw. Elyon brown thought she could do everything, and by the looks of it she was right. But why? Why could she get all that she wanted? Was it not enough that before her birth a female was determined to be the light of his mother's eyes. The Light of Meridian. But the senseless little scrap had everything, so why did she have to take what was his?

It was his rule, that no one enter those chambers. That is what he had inherited of his mother and while he now had nothing she had the room and the clothes and the idiot dolt of a child had of course gotten his mother's ability to draw. What did he have? _What did he have?_

_"Onnee iss missing.."_

Everything of Phobos' was always lost or taken, and if not his mother, he would own something and he swore by it. Be it the country. Be it the power. Be it anything it would; Prince Phobos would have something and Prince Phobos would sit with the Gods before he was dead.

* * *

><p>The last chapter is next, and I'm actually keen to have it done by today, as we are 2 episodes, or about 29 chapters from the next special.. And I'm pretty excited to do it. :P<p> 


	14. Chapter 14

"You must have a mistaken impression of me," Elyon sat in the center of the room with the Lord Cedric smiling at her almost conciously and Elyon's cheeks heated at the presumption she'd made. "Mon Elyon, I am three years after the young Prince. For how much were you presuming I was older?"

"I.." Elyon faltered under his gaze - it wasn't that she had thought very particularly older of him, but that she had mistaken Prince Phobos as younger than of near twenty seven. That made Cedric only eleven years over herself, and Elyon wondered how the country had come to being run by so many so young. And that cry. It's ghost still echoed in her ears; the solid moan of a frustrated man. Something was wrong with Phobos and Lord Cedric was keeping her away. Perhaps the poor man was dwelling on his country; in this long discussion they had reached the minor subject of the ruins, and Lord Cedric had admitted to her that a cross between rebels and a lack of Phobos' interest had brought the country into ruin. And funnily enough it was the closest to a truth Lord Cedric had told her since she'd heard that cry of inner turmoil. "I don't know."

And with that he captured her chin in his long, caressing fingers, and with that Elyon was forced to fall into his gaze and Elyon felt her stomach tingle as Cedric drew around her bottom lip with his thumb. "Beauty hides our sins, mon Elyon."

Who's sins? Hers?

**...**

Will had lumbered the sheer mass of Caleb to this point; a mere twenty feet from the silver dragon, and the skies were beginning to yawn and darken in colour. It didn't help that the moonlight had overshadowed the world, so that Will found his closeness being oddly romanticized in her mind, so that if it were cold she'd never know for the heat on her face and of that coming simply from his closeness. He was being a brat; the sheer weight of his fifteen year old body was built up with pure muscle too, so he was every bit as heavy as though she was carrying a fully grown man on her back, and by all means if he was holding any weight of his own; dropping it to her would surely end up with a tangle of limbs on the ground as her breath was already heavy, and as he smiled from inches away, Will flickered a wondering if maybe he wasn't lying after all. It would be a far greater punishment for him to have to endure the nearly hour with her, than if he'd more cleverly allowed Irma and Hay Lin -now clambering behind fifty feet back to mimic her deathly situation - to walk with him home for recovery so that he could guilt her in the morning. That was until another of those loud, pretentious cries of mocking 'pain' reminded her of how much he was enjoying this. Will tried to frown, but knew her features were burning to oppose her as she glared falsely at him. "God Caleb, are you even walking or am I just carrying you?"

"Is that an offer, because I'd have to decline; not wanting to labor a lady such as yourself." The sarcasm was evident, and for the long mile he hadn't bothered once to deny himself the smug smile across his features whenever it seemed to want to grace over his mouth and his softened eyes. But it was just as her breath had hitched a little, and her concentration had flitted from the road to him; it was just as she realized that this was maybe the closest proximity she had been for an extended period to the boy, and she was just noticing and counting every lash on his face when she finally realized that they had stopped and that he was staring right back at her with a frown on his face - a frown only deep enough to be wondering why she was staring at him. He smiled then, and Will felt a deja vu that surely it was usually him staring at her. "Why do you do that?"

"You're very handsome you know." It wasn't a compliment; not as she saw it and by the guilt flash of his eyes to the ground she supposed he understood that she was stating a fact more than a kind word. But she had expected him to be proud of such a fact - in the same way that Cornelia would grace a flick of her hair just to remind everyone of how pretty she was - and Will had expected his ego to shine through, but Caleb only glanced up and waited as the fast duo of Irma and Hay Lin pushed past (well it was Irma who had pushed, while Hay Lin had wanted to hug Will goodnight, but the effect was still the same and Will's eyes were quickly back on Caleb).

"A gift, I think." Will held off the urge to smile, because he didn't really seem to be joking, and if anything Caleb looked grim to tell her the fact. "My brother wanted me to suffer."

"Your what?" Will had sounded more shocked than she'd wanted, but it had been months now, and in a week Cornelia would be fifteen, and already two of them had aged, but Caleb was yet to tell them anything much about himself. Well, what was she to say if the others knew, but she rarely was gifted such a preview of Caleb. It was hard to picture Caleb with anyone at all, but a brother seemed least of all because the only three young enough were to be Aldarn, the Prince and.. "Is it Drake? He doesn't really look li-"

And he'd pressed his finger on her mouth again; he did it more often, it would seem, since he'd realized it would get her to shut up, and Caleb shook his head. "I don't share blood with him.. He just wishes to punish me so."

And Will didn't know what to say and wished that Caleb would take his arm off of her, because she'd seen a pain that made her urge to step back. Away from his warmth in the night, because who was she to steal it when he clearly felt cold enough without him burdening her. "I'm sorry that I got so angry about Cornelia."

**...**

Prince Phobos had waited until the salt water on his cheeks had dried invisible, before he'd gone to collect the key to where he knew that Cedric was lurking. The murmurers had told him that they'd seen him - yes, Prince Phobos had not left the ballroom unguarded when he'd locked the door to a future he'd never been old enough to face. At seven years old, Prince Phobos had known, on the very week that it all occurred Cedric had once set his eyes on a ball, but it was a fact Cedric had only spoken back before Elyon pierced Prince Phobos' very lungs; back when he smiled with leisure rather than force, and back when he would ask Lord Cedric to talk to him simply because Phobos liked to see the poor man quake in the murmur room. But Prince Phobos had only set eyes on the ball as it had been when he closed the door and locked it. Empty. Dead. Like Phobos' very soul that day that, he believed Cedric's own father had led him around the castle, yammering a confident drawl of how the ten year old prince would own this all until his sister would take it.

It was before his sister had disappeared into the night and before Prince Phobos had understood that his mother and father were not expected to return. They had surely only been gone for three days. Prince Phobos walked with more difficulty than he let on, and Phobos made the speed look lazy rather than ailing, because Cedric was not to know until the brute again ventured to his mother's door, that Phobos had use his soul to lock the door with flowers as beautiful as his mother's eyes. Prince Phobos pushed the heavy key into the largest arching door that remained inside the castle unopened. The only other entrance was not for him to see, and in fact Cedric and Elyon had more right than he did.

The door echoed a loud, rusty click as it opened after seventeen long years - Prince Phobos at ten had had no taste for the dancing of a ball, and since the boy had grown, Phobos hadn't the heart to open it again. He had missed his fourteenth birthday; when right had allowed him to grace these balls, but his own sense had stopped him. Who would he ever invite to attend.

Elyon's eyes were on him when he pushed in; slowly; leisurely; with damaged muscles which were torn and twisted where no one could see, but Phobos forced a smirk to grace his lips despite his eyes finding the brooch at once. Stolen. The bitch had stolen his mother's jewels and had the nerve to wear them. And now how dare she smile at him with such a light in her eyes - a light that claimed she adored him, despite these acts of vengeful torture. "Phobos.."

"I.. Had a fall." His eyes ventured to Cedric's - ignoring the dirty clouded grey of Elyon's worried features - and the despicable menial had had the nerve to meet his gaze. Phobos traveled back upon his sister; this time forcing his eyes on her face. She probably didn't even realize she was wearing his mother's bronzed clasp. He'd seen it before, in his worried mother's fingers, but never on her dress. It was new when she'd left him, but now his steel blue eyes were only allowed to grace Elyon's disgusting face. "We'll be eating soon if you'd like for us to go."

There it was again - the light in her eyes, before her stomach rumbled and Phobos knew she had not yet eaten today. She'd been skulking with Cedric for so long she could have diminished in starvation. He wished she would.

**...**

Irma Lair pressed her face against the window and prayed that neither Caleb, nor Will would notice. It was a miracle that Hay Lin didn't.. It was a miracle Irma'd never noticed it before - because Caleb was always saying things to Will, and Irma had cracked the window open so that the sounds could travel from the pair only inches apart, not a few feet from the 'Dragon; Caleb was yet to pull his arm from Will's shoulder and Irma wondered how a boy could be in such adoration to share those sorts of words, yet he didn't seem to realize what he did. "I'm sorry that you're so pretty."

That was it. It had to be. The moment of truth when Will's eyes startled up to his and she blushed. Irma's nosed pressed harder against the cold glass and waited for the pair to jump each other kissing, but Will only smiled at him morosely. "Cornelia is pretty."

"Cornelia is beautiful." Caleb had nodded and agreed and Irma wondered if they'd notice her throwing a plate at him out the restaurant door for being so insolent. "But you're the one who hides any prettiness you have."

"Thank you.. I think." Will had laughed then, and Irma truly couldn't see what was funny, but then Caleb slipped his hand away and began a confident trek to the door. She laughed even louder and Irma frowned as Hay Lin snuck up beside her to see what was interesting; a toothbrush hanging from her mouth as Will grinned, walking backwards. "I thought you couldn't walk."

Caleb joined the grinning and Irma knew that hope was lost. "It was emotional trauma that prevented me."

"Riight."

**...**

Later, in the hours of the night, after gleeing every time Prince Phobos' eyes wandered to his sister's chest, Lord Cedric bowed before the alleged Prince of Darkness. Shaking, Cedric could hear the man shaking and Cedric winced when Phobos lifted Cedric's head and forcefully slapped him. Atonement of his sins; for the prince was too enraged to shout.


End file.
